I’d seen a copy of this back in the 90s but then forgot about it until seeing these scans - back then I was only a callow youth so the idea of improving Helvetica didn’t seem so remarkable or interesting as it does now. Essentially, Haas Unica came about as a result of analysing the original version of Helvetica, its variants (as they were in 1980) and similar faces and seeking to improve them - to produce the ultimate archetypal sans serif face. A single face to unite them all, if you like. Looking at the comparitive settings of both faces at text size shows how subtle the differences are, with a detail closeup first: You can get an idea of the kind of analysis they did from this little snippet: The character width of Haas Helvetica appears to us to be generally somewhat narrow, so that the rhythm of the typeface is rather uneasy in its effect.
Typographie / un cours à l’Erg (École de recherche graphique), B. Il y a près de quatre ans, sur l’invitation généreuse de Renaud Huberlant, j’entamais, avec la co-animation de ce blog, un exercice de balisage du flux informationnel de la toile et une tentative modeste de décryptage des enjeux et des élans du graphisme contemporain.